It seems that the Oculus Rift will be made at an affordable price but the games that will support it will be more expensive compared to games that don't.
In an interview with Games Industry International, Oculus VR, Inc. CEO Brendan Iribe would not be surprised to see Oculus games cost more than $60 but the Oculus Rift price itself will be "low".
Brendan Iribe notes that as a hardware manufacturer his business has no say in what companies will charge for Oculus-enhanced games, but admits he would not be surprised to see them come at a high price.
"It's going to be up to the developers," he says. "There will be some who make casual, simpler experiences - maybe bite sized. There are going to be Indie developers that make bigger experiences. And there are going to be bigger teams that make really big experiences. ... And some that we've seen early prototypes of... Well, we've seen some that, boy, would I pay a lot to get that experience in virtual reality."
Aaron Davies, director of developer relations at Oculus VR, agrees with him.
"In VR, suddenly objects have value - and scale and size and depth and I think there will be opportunities for developers to monetize them," Aaron Davies says.
Higher prices for games could be one of the few things to derail the excitement about VR. Gamers are still getting used from the move from $50 to $60. EA recently had been criticized by suggesting they might jump to $70 with the launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
He notes though by raising prices also raises risk for the developers.
"They'd better deliver if they're going to charge more than $50 or $60 for a game," he says.
According to the interview, Brendan Iribe noted that the Oculus Rift has shipped more than 50,000 developer kits for the Rift and a recent prototype the "Crystal Cove" is a significant improvement.
The Oculus Rift "Crystal Cove" prototype offers positional tracking, giving users six degrees of visual freedom. And it has significantly reduced motion blur.
"Latency has been improved as well. The developer kits in people's hands have a latency of about 50-60 milliseconds. Crystal Cove got that down to between 30-40 milliseconds". The goal for launch, says Iribe, "is 20 - with the hopes of further reducing that in later models."
When talking about the Oculus Rift price or when it is going to launch, he had this to say.
"We're not going to ship until we have a version that delivers a highly immersive, comfortable experience at a low price," says Iribe. "I don't mean just the foam padding and things like that. The experience of virtual reality has to be comfortable. VR has never been close to comfortable. We're confident we will deliver a very comfortable experience for version one".
